Santorum: Obama's phony theology, abortions, and more.

Even though we live in a country where there shall be no religious test for public office, Santorum is trying to appeal to voters by claiming that Obama's theology is "phoney" - a "different kind of christianity".

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

Santorum also claims that, for some reason, since Obama is black, he shouldn't be deciding that a fetus is not fully human under the constitution. "Remarkable for a black man". Remarkable for a presidential candidate, where are fetuses discussed in the constitution again? Let's play the "race card" to equate fetus rights (And embryo rights, and blastocyst rights, and fertilized egg rights) with the fight against racism.

Santorum claims that "Obamacare" prenatal testing is a way to save money by aborting potentially disabled fetuses. Although, prenatal testing CAN be used to avoid having a baby with some devastating illnesses, like Tay-Sachs, and in some countries to avoid the dreaded XX Chromosome combination.... I know, I know, but this is a demagogic tool to influence voters. There is not a sound-bite-able argument.

every institution in America has been destroyed by Satan; from academia to politics with even the church having fallen under His sway – not the Catholic church, of course, but “mainline Protestantism” which is in such “shambles” that it is not even Christian any longer.

Also noting that "this is a spiritual war"

People are voting for this religious fanatic, a crusader to impose Catholic orthodoxy on the American public? I think I need a xanax.

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Rick Santorum is warning those of us who oppose theocracy and religion in government (like Tom Jefferson and friends) not to reject god from government because he says it will lead a replay of the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror by religion bashing Jacobins and French peasantry who executed the French king and aristocrats.

But this reveals a total lack of historical knowledge by this disguised priest who also lectures us about the “evils” of birth control while denying all past atrocities of his church. The reason that the French peasants revolted and took revenge against the monarch and aristocrats is because they had been denied all political rights, oppressed, starved, abused and were forced to pay for the flagrant opulent life style and splendor of the nobility. It was even a criminal for them to kill rabbits who ran across their diminutive plots of land for food because this “interfered” with the hunting of the aristocrats.

The reason that they overthrew the catholic church as well was the fact that the church was totally supporting and justifying this oppression with its dogma that this was god’s plan for the peasants and that kings had a divine right to rule. Atheism did not cause them to rebel – atheism was the response to the cruel and immoral support of monarchic oppression by religion. It was the same kind of theocratic abuse that led to the creation of secular democracies and the American Constitution.

This is pretty much like what Santorum and his right wing fundamentalist buddies are doing today when they fully support the right of the 1% to rule at the expense of the 99%.

It's so hard for me to understand the attraction of Santorum, except through the lens of what he is "not" - He's "not-Mormon", he's "not-rich" (at least not perceived to be rich - not in Romneys league, but still worth millions), he's "not-slick" (at least not perceived to be polished - but wathc now as he moves to the middle of the political spectrum), he's "not-Black" - and I still can't get over the hate of Obama as not being at least partly racism. It still amazes me, the turn-around of evangelicals and evangelicals with Catholic Santorum - I grew up fundamentalist, and Catholics were considered in my church to be the spawn of satan, and the pope was regarded as the "ant-christ"; meanwhile Santorum openly disdains protestants as "not really christian".

Adversity makes strange bedfellows...but this is beyond weird. It might have something to do with the ignorant wanting to return to what they perceive as the warm and fuzzy Bush days, when the Prez was a guy who disdained "book-learnin", the kind of guy they felt they could sit down with on the front porch and have a beer or two (The fact that Bush was a spoiled blueblood brat from a long line of rich blueblooded plutocrats seemed to have escaped them - Bush's Texan Cowboy persona must have fooled them). Sanitorium's crazy-assed proclamations of faith, anti-gay, and anti-woman sentiments are soothing balm to the hate-shrivelled prunes they call hearts.

Any thinking voter, upon hearing such a phrase from ANY candidate for office, should at minimum, take a second look at said candidate if not eliminate him or her from consideration altogether. The problem, of course, is the word, "thinking." How many in the electorate are allowing their priest or pastor to make their decision for them, because of an abject failure to think for themselves?

In a way, I almost hope Santorum does get the GOP nomination, because I can't imagine a more radical contrast between candidates than that between Obama and Santorum and the concept of a government driven by secular values and one driven ostensibly by the church. Ideally, it would be a wake-up call for those who may not initially see harm in religious participation in matters political, but are willing to learn otherwise upon further scrutiny. Once and for all, the American public might get a true lesson in just why there is a separation between church and state in this country and just what is represented by both sides of that dichotomy. I would also hope it would lead to a landslide for Obama the likes of which this country hasn't seen in a while.

What a shame I'm not that naive. Tommy Lee Jones of the movie Men In Black said it well:

A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.

The same can be said of voters ... and I am honestly afraid that the election of 2012 will as much be a referendum on the intelligence of the American electorate as it will be on Obama and which ever opponent he faces.

I really hope Santorum does not win the Republican nomination - I fear that he will downplay the religiosity in the general election, and he will win as the "not-Obama". If Romney didn't have to worry about displaying his Mormonism to voters who are leery of voting for a Mormon, he might spotlight Santorum's Catholic extremism and get people more leery of that. Really, no religion should have any place in government, but Santorum is driven by, and promotes, his Catholic orthodoxy at every step of the way, and this "traditional values" approach is winning him votes. Behind all of that, the marriage equality issue is more prominent than ever. He doesn't have to talk about that now - he's established his cred on that issue can can concentrate on other issues to fire up the fundy core, like fetus rights.

If Santorum downplays his religiosity, as you suggest, it would be a real change of course for him, and one which the media should not allow him to get away with, regardless of whether he wins the nomination or not. If he DOES win the nomination, all this radicalism which he has displayed to date will dog him either in media coverage or in political ads. He can downplay it all he wants; there are plenty of people (like us!) who won't let voters forget what Santorum stands for.

I think it's time that the whole religious component of these campaigns got highlighted and cast in the light of a government which is not supposed to favor ANY religion. It seems as though no one can mention Romney without also mentioning his mormonism or Santorum and his catholicism, yet Obama keeps on keepin' on with far less mention of whatever religious beliefs he holds. We need to push and push hard at How Inappropriate Religious Content Is in the conduct of these campaigns ... before it overwhelms any chance of removing it.

He worries me because he doesn't have that robotic, flip-flop reputation that Romney has, and as crappy as his politics are, he comes off as more straightforward. But there's a good chance he's going to piss off a lot of women, with the way he made the "religious freedom" to deny employees birth control a big issue.

Ironic that he claims that reason and secularism will lead to the Terror and the Guillotine. If any candidate is most like the architect of the terror Maximilian Robespierre who was a prissy, sexually repressed man driven by his own unique perverted ideology which he wanted to impose on everyone is Rick Sanctimonious.

All he needs to do now is set up a Committee and Public Safety and start his own Cult of Supreme Being.

"Terror is nothing other than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible; it is therefore an emanation of virtue; it is not so much a special principle as it is a consequence of the general principle of democracy applied to our country's most urgent needs" Robespierre From Sur les principes de morale politique